If you are a newbie prepper or a veteran gardener this article may raise a number of different questions.
Are you counting on growing a garden to supplement your food storage program? Good!
Okay, you have your Survival Seed Bank heirloom seeds in storage. Now what?
Are you thinking that you have a large back yard that when the time comes you will sacrifice to turn it into a garden?
Good use of your backyard, but let’s get it ready before you are desperate for the food.
Are you going to rent or buy a tiller when the time comes?
Will there be any for sale or rent at that time?
What if you cannot get gas for the roto-tiller or garden tractor?
Are you going to break up all that sod by hand? Do you have the tools to do it by hand?
Okay, probably not.
Prepare your garden soil now, when you are not desperate. While you still have the resources, break up the sod and till it in deeply. Some types of lawn grass may need to be repeatedly tilled until it no longer sends out new grass starts. Or you may elect to scalp the sod now and add in humus as an amendment.
Amend your soil so that you can spade the whole area by hand or use a hand powered garden cultivator when the time comes. And I firmly believe it will.
You may not think much if anything about the soil that will become your garden. How dull! But soil is the very foundation to a superior garden. To have good soil, you need to know the kind of soil you now have, and what that soil needs, to become superior soil; one that can be cared for by hand, if need be.
Many of the eastern US soils tend to be acidic. Some are mostly sand and won’t hold the water you put on it. Southwestern soils may be alkaline. Northwestern mountain soils may be quite acidic or heavy with clay that holds too much water in the spring and are difficult to work up at all.
When discussing soil, we need to focus on five things: structure, texture, organic matter, fertility and pH. These can all be influenced by the amendments you add to your soil.
Structure
How do you determine the structure of your soil? Soil structure refers to the way your soil sticks together when you squeeze a handful of it. Grab a handful of your damp soil. Squeeze it firmly and then poke it lightly with your finger. Did it fall apart? It is likely sand. Did it require a bit more pressure when you poked it? Then you probably have silt. If you can squeeze it and then poke it and see your fingerprints in it, you undoubtedly have pure clay! A good soil structure is crumbly. Plant roots work their way easily through it. The soil is well aerated yet holds water so the plants can access it without holding the water so long as to cause root rot.
Texture
Soil texture refers to the size of the soil particles. Sand has the largest particles and they are irregularly shaped. This is why sand feels gritty and also why it drains so well. Sand doesn’t compact easily. Silt particles are much smaller than sand, but still irregularly shaped and does not compact very easily either. Clay has microscopic sized particles that are almost flat so it packs very easily, leaving little or no room for air or water to move about. Clay soils often contain iron and aluminum hydroxides, which affect the retention and availability of fertilizer.
Sandy loam is considered the ideal garden soil and consists of a mix of the three basic textures. However, don’t run out to buy sand to add to your clay. It will just make an aggregate suitable for concrete! However, let’s see how to make your soil better!
Most if not all soils need to be amended to become great soils that reliably produce abundantly with minimal effort.
Amending Your Soil
So what does soil amendment mean? Amend means to change or modify for the better. That is exactly what you want to do. The last thing you want, is for YOU to be struggling to survive as you watch your new plants struggling for survival, demanding ever more food and water.
Amendments are soil additives that make your soil easier to cultivate and which modify soil texture and structure. Organic matter holds the moisture in dry or sandy soils and helps prevent clay soils from retaining too much moisture or providing too little aeration. Fertility amendments provide “time release” nutrients for your plants. Amending your soil with the right organic matter and fertilizers will feed the beneficial soil microbes. These will help you to first feed the soil so it can then feed your plants. Finally amendments modify pH to suit the plants.
Organic Matter
Typical yard soils are composed of about 90 percent mineral residues and only about ten percent organic material. Additional organic matter added to your soil provides food for the village of organisms below your garden surface. These beneficial microorganisms living in the soil release nutrients into the soil as they live off of the organic matter.
Earthworms and other insects that live in the soil further aerate the soil and contribute still more nutritive matter with their castings. This entire eco-village makes a healthful environment in which your growing garden produce will thrive.
Compost is gold for your garden. It is the decomposed, cured form of organic matter. Compost, worked into new beds or top dressed and watered into established beds, increases microbial activity improving soil character and moisture retention. There is some nutrient value as well. Although the best source for good compost is homemade, if you need a large amount, many land grant universities and recycling organizations make compost and sell it by the truckload. Fermented compost tea also provides a great boost of microbes for the soil, which in turn convert nutrients into a usable form available to plants.
Peat moss is a long lasting, humus source helping to slowly acidify the soil. It holds moisture ten to fifteen times its own weight when fully moistened and still allows 40 percent aeration. It does not have much nutrient value itself, but is excellent at holding the nutrients you add to the soil preventing them from leaching out. Do not apply to the surface since it will repel water when dry.
Green manure is not animal manure at all, but rather, is a cover crop that is grown in your garden and tilled into the garden soil to build fertility and add humus. Annual rye, barley, buckwheat, clover, legumes and alfalfa are good green manure crops.
Pelletized alfalfa is another form of green manure, commercially harvested and pelletized for your ease of use. It contains small amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, which feed the plants. But the greatest benefit to your garden is the hormone, Triacontanol, a plant growth regulator. The pellets can be top-dressed as mulch and watered in.
You can achieve faster results by steeping the alfalfa as a tea, and allowing it to ferment. Using the millions of microbes in the fermented liquid makes all the nutrients in the soil more quickly available to your plants. Pesticides typically used on gardens and lawns kill the beneficial microbes and other fauna in the soil that help deliver these nutrients to your plants.
Only apply alfalfa to the surface of the soil around plants. If applied in the root zone of the soil, the heat of the rapidly composting alfalfa would destroy the roots. However, if you were building your soil the year prior to planting your garden, this would be fine.
Fertility
Plants need nutrition just like people do, to grow strong and bolster their disease resistance. Amendments, that provide the “time release” nutrition for your plants, allow them to feed gently and continuously. These amendments include fish meal, rock phosphate, potash, manure, cottonseed meal, kelp meal and bone meal. These are fertilizers from animal, vegetable and mineral sources, which release their nutrition to the microbes in the soil that in turn make the nutrients available to the plants. Organic gardening nutrients are not as instantaneous as commercial fertilizer which can give the plants a “high” but are not sustainable over several seasons. in desperate times, you may not be able to get more commercial fertilizer each time the plant “high” diminishes. Synthetic fertilizers add nothing to the soil’s long-term fertility.
Bone meal is a long-lasting source of phosphorous containing slowly available phosphorous as well as low levels of nitrogen, potassium and calcium. The slow availability of the nutrients makes it very safe for transplanting young plants.
Manures are a good source of nutrients and organic matter. When purchasing composted horse manure, however, make sure that it is actually pure manure and not predominantly the wood chips used for bedding the horses. The further decomposition of the chips in the garden can actually use up the available nitrogen in the garden. Often the commercially composted manure will say that it is heat treated to kill seeds. This also kills the beneficial bacteria in naturally composted manure. Dehydrated cow manure dried and pulverized, comes in fifty-pound bags. It too, has been heat treated to kill weed seeds and is convenient and easy to apply. It is long lasting. About half of the nutrients remaining will be available each year.
Cottonseed meal is a good fertilizer with a high amount of organic nitrogen, perhaps the second best source of organic nitrogen after blood meal. Cottonseed meal is easily obtained at your local feed store or garden nursery. The nitrogen is broken down slowly by microbial action and is made available in “time release” format. Cottonseed meal also acidifies the soil.
Kelp meal is a fertilizer made from ocean kelp and is very high in potassium and trace elements and an excellent source of plant hormones that stimulate plant and root growth. Kelp meal provides a quick boost for greening up the plant foliage. When mixed with fish meal or fish emulsion it makes a fantastic booster for the entire garden.
Fish meal is a superior natural fertilizer, high in phosphorous and nitrogen, which stimulates both bloom and green growth. Some folks object to the strong fish odor and recommend plugging it into the soil about ten inches deep covered with four inches of soil. However, when the fish meal is tilled in, the odor is not apparent and will not be an open invitation to your neighbor’s cats or the spring bears!
Rock phosphate contains 20-30 percent phosphate but supplies phosphorus very slowly with only about 3 percent available at a time. However, it has other trace minerals and is a good amendment to add as part of a well-rounded soil mix.
pH
Next you will need to test your soil to determine the pH, acid (below 7.0) neutral (7.0) or alkaline (above 7.0) You can test the pH of your soil by using an inexpensive pH testing kit. A small sample of your soil is mixed with water, which changes color according to acidity or alkalinity.
Most plants prefer pH neutral soil. Some plants, however, prefer more acidic soil, such as potatoes and strawberries or alkaline such as yams, and the cabbage family of plants. A good site to visit that covers the pH needs of fruits and vegetables is http://www.thegardenhelper.com/soilPH.htm
Diseases affecting plants also tend to thrive in soil with a particular pH range. The pH range affects the availability of nutrients in the soil.
pH Buffering Amendments
Soil amendments providing pH buffering include elemental sulfur, glauconite (greensand) and chemical free wood ashes.
Elemental sulfur helps acidify alkaline soil. Sulfur reaction in the soil is slow. It may take a few months or longer to change soil pH to the desired level because the process of conversion of elemental sulfur to sulfate is the result of the microbes in your soil. Sulfur should be added to the soil in the spring, since the oxidation results from microbial activity, which is not active in winter. It can be added in the winter, but the acidification will not begin until the microbial activity returns in the warmer months.
Greensand (glauconite) is another way to acidify the soil. It is called greensand for the gritty texture and green color. Greensand has many different elements mixed into it. However, the end result of the microbial activity on the greensand is that the soil becomes more acid. Greensand also helps loosen heavy clay soils.
Wood ashes from trees or lumber free of paint, preservatives, and other chemical contaminants can safely be used to increase the pH of an acid soil (make it more alkaline). Wood ash is also a great source of potash.
Building your garden’s soil is an ongoing process. By making healthy soil a focus at the start of making a garden, you will have a head start on providing food for your family when the grocery stores are empty.
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